University of Akron: We’re not Closing Multicultural Center

by Diverse Staff

The University of Akron joined a growing list of colleges and universities exercising severe fiscal belt-tightening in the new budget year when it announced this week that 213 staffers were losing their jobs. The university is attempting to offset a reported $40 million deficit.

UVa Grads Sue Rolling Stone Over Retracted Campus Rape Story

by Alan Suderman, Associated Press

Three University of Virginia graduates and members of a fraternity who were portrayed in a debunked account of a gang rape in a retracted Rolling Stone magazine story filed a lawsuit against the publication and the article’s author, court records show.

Feds Accuse Philadelphia Congressman Fattah of Corruption

by Maryclaire Dale, Associated Press

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah paid off a campaign loan with charitable donations and federal grants, funneled campaign money to pay down his son’s student loan debt and disguised a lobbyist’s bribe as payment for a car he never sold, prosecutors said Wednesday in announcing a racketeering indictment against the congressman.

BCCC in Good Standing; Sojourner-Douglass Loses Accreditation

Diverse Docket: Race Discrimination Suit Still on Table

by Eric Freedman

Borough of Manhattan Community College and the chair of its Business Management Department must continue defending a race discrimination suit by an adjunct professor of Nigerian descent, a federal judge has ruled.

Boston College Under Investigation Over Access for Disabled

by Associated Press

Boston College has become more difficult to navigate for people with disabilities in recent years, according to former and current students whose complaints have prompted an investigation into whether the school is violating accessibility laws.

Diverse Docket: Morehead State Unanimous Winner on Appeal

by Eric Freedman

Morehead State University didn’t violate First Amendment rights or commit disability discrimination when it denied tenure to an assistant professor of art history, a unanimous federal appeals panel has ruled.

Study Links Discrimination, Blacks’ Risk of Mental Disorders

by Catherine Morris

New research shows that African Americans and Caribbean Blacks who experience multiple types of discrimination are at a much greater risk for a variety of mental disorders, such as anxiety, depression and substance abuse.

Exchange Program Expands Horizons of African-American Males

14 members of three fraternities at The Ohio State University (OSU) traveled to China last month, where they choreographed a step show for Chinese students as part of a cross-cultural awareness program funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of State.

Injured Football Player to Return to Towson University

Educators Competing With Athletics for Low-income Students’ Focus

by Lydia Lum

Workshop panelist Nathan Weigl, a doctoral student at Appalachian State University, suggested that recruiting tactics of college coaches can be borrowed and adapted by GEAR UP practitioners and community partners.

Cal State Campuses Preserving Painful Piece of U.S. History

by Lydia Lum

The archives of 15 California State University campuses are collaborating to digitize about 10,000 documents and 100-plus oral histories connected to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The Jeremy Lin phenomenon is a breakthrough for Asian Americans like no other. In a time when there are more Asians and Asian Americans on college campuses than ever before, Lin’s explosion into our pop consciousness as an NBA basketball star is allowing society a new pathway to see Asian Americans. People in general have been stuck in a rut – especially if you think Asian Americans are just the math whizzes, first chair violin, or the local TV anchor gal. Lin, the first American-born Chinese of Taiwanese descent is forcing us all to look beyond the stereotypes, and to make us own up to a diversity that is truly diverse.

The most important thing is seeing the difference between Asian and Asian American.

They aren’t the same, though the immigrant experience connects the two. If you didn’t know there was a difference between now retired NBA star Yao Ming and Jeremy Lin, now you do. And it’s not height.

Certainly, there have been Asian American breakthroughs before in the United States.

But when Norm Mineta became the first Asian American to serve in two presidential Cabinets we didn’t have Norm-mania. In that sense, there’s been nothing quite like what we’ve seen the last few weeks. It’s like the diversity version of the Beatles.

Unfortunately, Linsanity hasn’t been without its awkward moments.

On the one hand, it’s been an easy embrace. Everyone loves a winner, especially one whose presence has catalyzed a turnaround of a losing New York sports team. In the media center of the world, Lin makes good copy. He’s a headline writer’s dream.

Lin favors the coinage “Super Lintendo.” But there are all sorts of Lin puns out there. My contribution: “Lin”-phomania, for the non-stop love everyone feels for Lin.

But when copy writers get giddy, they resort to the stereotypes they know. Sports columnist Jason Whitlock went with a penis joke. ESPN resorted to using a clichéd phrase to describe Lin’s high number of ball handling errors. But does “Chink in the armor” really cut it? Lin’s success has drawn everything out into the open – even our subconscious racism, and apparently, there’s a lot of that.

Lin heard taunts when he was at Harvard, so that’s nothing new. But the flecks of racism we’ve seen only show how little we know about Asian Americans. And when we are blessed with an opportunity like Lin arriving on the scene, isn’t it odd that all we know is all we know, and it’s racist? Bang the gong, give me some yo-yo-talk, pass the MSG. One graphic had Lin popping out of a fortune cookie.

There’s a fine line between good fun and racism. Black people know that when cartoonists used pick-a-ninnies. Let’s hope we don’t see Lin in a bamboo hat and slant eyes anytime soon.

We’ve stopped doing that kind of thing with other ethnic athletes. We know that when a Black athlete makes good, we won’t bring out the watermelon and chicken references.

And the mayor of East Haven, Conn., now knows he shouldn’t show try to make amends to a Latino community by saying he’s going to eat tacos.

Linsanity doesn’t have to give into the inanity of racism. Lin’s success isn’t our cue to desensitize and lower our tolerance levels. But with Lin in the limelight, we’re learning how to get there.

Specifically to the higher ed world, Lin’s saga shows what can happen when athletics and academics are put in perspective. Lin was an Ivy League basketball player at Harvard. The Ivies don’t give out athletic scholarships, and subsequently don’t become de facto minor leagues for professional sports. When that’s out of whack, it exposes the conflicts between academics and athletics. Too many campuses have lost their way. Athletics make money and bond alums, but those things shouldn’t aren’t the real purpose of higher ed. If the purpose of many schools is to get to the NFL or the NBA, the Ivies show you can have the biggest star on the professional planet much cheaper than the athletic budget of your typical D-1 university.

For Lin, his athletic career was all on him. No scholarship. No one drafted him in the NBA. So he became his own athletic entrepreneur. He tried out, got cut from two teams. He even played in the D-league, the real minor league of the NBA. He connected with the Knicks, but even there he faced being cut were it not for injuries to their millionaire ball players.

Time to consider playing in the Philippines? Not Lin.

He stayed put. He prepared, got better and when he got his chance, he excelled. He got past stereotypical thinking others imposed on him, and now he plays on the biggest basketball stage in the biggest city in the world.

What did he apply? His own sense of affirmative action. He believed. He didn’t give up. He made it.

The Knicks have lost one game in the last eight as I write and Linsanity evolves. Good thing. There’s a lot to learn from the Jeremy Lin story.

Emil Guillermo, a former host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” has covered diversity issues for 30 years. His column, “Amok,” is at www.aaldef.org/blog and at www.amok.com.

Older Men, Minorities Report Lower Rates of Treatment for Depression LOS ANGELESOlder men, African Americans and Latinos with clinical depression reported significantly lower rates of treatment than other participants surveyed in a national study led by UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute researchers. Overall, less than one in three depressed older adults studied had received potentially effective treatment […]

Stanford Under Federal Investigation For DiscriminationSTANFORD, Calif. — Stanford University is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Labor for potential violation of federal affirmative action law and gender discrimination.The federal investigation was prompted, in part, by statements made by the university’s outgoing provost, Condoleezza Rice who has repeatedly expressed reservations about the goals and […]